## Book review: MONEY: A Story of Humanity

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Book review: MONEY: A Story of Humanity](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/12/books-kearns.pdf)

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### Scope and central thesis
- Presents money as “one foundational technology, often overlooked, that underpinned and animated human flourishing.”
- Traces roughly 5,000 years of monetary history from early coins to crypto.
- Poses the central “chicken-or-egg” question: did money enable innovations like writing, math, law, democracy, and philosophy, or did those innovations guide money’s evolution?
- Emphasizes human agency: “People predominate.”

### Narrative style and author voice
- Described as a “romp with an economist” — lively, conversational, and chatty.
- Author is an enthusiastic narrator of “one of the most seductive and enduring ideas.”
- Aims to make money “exciting” and to show how it “changes us and fuels our deepest urges, good and evil.”
- Includes storytelling digressions that connect individuals and events across history.

### Author background and sources
- David McWilliams: former monetary economist at the Central Bank of Ireland and forecaster for commercial banks; later an author, journalist, documentarian, and festival host (Kilkenomics).
- This is McWilliams’s sixth book.
- Draws on prior works and histories, including:
  - Money by Eric Lonergan
  - Money: The Unauthorised Biography by Felix Martin
  - The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest by Edward Chancellor

### Key figures and episodes highlighted
- Historical figures profiled include Nero, Jesus, Johannes Gutenberg, Charles Talleyrand, Alexander Hamilton, and Charles Darwin.
- Notes Thomas Malthus’s economics book influencing Darwin’s theory.
- European financial innovations are linked to the unleashing of colonialism and to the use of money in warfare.
- A chapter profiles James Joyce as an artist-entrepreneur who opened Dublin’s first cinema in 1909 and connects this episode to the Suez Canal, Karl Marx, and the role of tolerant, open cities like Trieste.

### Strengths and criticisms
- Strengths:
  - Skillful, conversational storytelling that makes complex monetary history accessible and engaging.
  - Brings human characters vividly to life — “Some are brilliant characters, others scoundrels.”
- Criticisms:
  - Eurocentric focus: centers on Europe and touches other cradles of money, like China, only in passing.
  - Author explains the selective focus as a choice to link monetary innovation to human progress but acknowledges “others elsewhere tell equally valid stories.”
  - Suggests mainstream economics has “taken the fun out of money” and sometimes misses broader meanings (analogy: plumbers know pipes but not “why water is essential for life”).

### Publication and bibliographic details (as presented)
- Title: MONEY: A Story of Humanity
- Author: David McWilliams
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Place and year: London, 2024
- Length and price: 416 pp., £25
- Associated organization: Foundation for Human Flourishing

*Jeff Kearns; Finance & Development; DECEMBER 2024.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/12/books-kearns.pdf_